(Warning: All accelerometer connections must be done carefully.

If in doubt always ask the Lab Personnel before proceeding with the experiment). FREE VIBRATION EXPERIMENT STUDY OF NATURAL FREQUENCY OF BEAMS AIM: To obtain the natural frequency of the given beams using accelerometer and data acquisition software and compare with theoretical frequency. To calculate the damping ratio using logarithmic decrement method. Apparatus required Accelerometer (0.5Hz 10000Hz) Power supply (9V, 2mA) Data Acquisition system FFT software Description of Apparatus An accelerometer is a device that measures the acceleration of the vibration of a structure.
The description of Accelerometer is as follows:

K-Shear Accelerometer, 8.7 g

Specifications Model Range Sensitivity Frequency Range Mass

Type 8702B50 Single axis linear 50 100 0.5...10000 8.7

g mV/g Hz Gram

Power Supply / Coupler Kistler Type 5110

Type 5110 Sensor Excitation Current Sensor signal voltage Frequency Range Output signal Gain Voltage Operating temperature range mA V kHz V V C 2 20 0.1...60000 18 1 9 alkaline battery -10...54

Mass

kg

0.15

Accelerometer connections (Warning: If in doubt, always ask Lab personnel ) The accelerometer is connected to the input socket of DC power supply unit (type 5110) shown above. The output signal from the power supply unit is connected to the USB port of PC, which leads to the AD card. The output data are acquired by a LabView based program which captures and display the time domain signal of the vibration. Experimental Procedure: 1. Beams of different materials and cross sections are to be tested for natural frequency in flexure. 2. Measure the dimensions of each beam (cross section, length of cantilever after clamping) and note the material. Each beam is to be clamped firmly in the cantilever position. 3. The theoretical natural frequency is calculated using formulae given below:
fn Cn 2 EI AL4

f n nth natural frequency in Hertz ( Hz ). C1 3.515 for 1st natural frequency. C2 22.03 for 2nd natural frequency. E Modulus of Elasticity ( N / m 2 ). I Moment of inertia of section in m 4 . A Area in m 2 .

Mass density in kg / m3 .
(note: E steel=200x109 N/m2; E Al=75x109 N/m2; Steel= 7500 kg/m3; Al= 2700 kg/m3;) 4. Apply wax to the Accelerometer, and fix it firmly to the given cantilever. 5. Check the accelerometer is connected correctly to the power supply unit and Labview program (AT101) is started in the PC. 6. Open AT101 software. Enter Sampling rate / samples to be collected for measuring Vibration. Typically 1000 samples per sec for 3 seconds is adequate. 7. Acquire samples by strongly tapping the cantilever. Save data in a file. 8. Export this data to an FFT analyzer and transform into a frequency domain. 9. Plot the frequency domain and find the frequency peaks which correspond to natural frequencies. 10. Compare those frequencies with theoretically calculated values. 11. Calculate the damping coefficient () using logarithmic decrement. Submission of Report: Brief explanation of how the experiment was done & equipment used. Theoretical calculation of flexural natural frequencies of the given beam using formula. Experimental calculation of the natural frequencies using FFT of signal.

Reasons for mismatch between the analytical and experimental values (if any). Calculation of damping ratio from test data (method shown below).

Study this region

(Time plotted from 0 to 3 seconds entire sample)

X0 amplitude X1 amplitude X10 amplitude

Time plotted from 1.5 to 2 seconds, showing decay of response

Expression for damping ratio is calculated using the following formula:

2 1 2 X 1 log e 0 n Xn

Where X0, Xn are the amplitudes of 0th and nth peaks (measure from the above figure). has to be solved from the equation. If the peaks cannot be accurately measured, the average value of can be found by trials over many peaks.

Calculation of natural frequencies from the time response: FFT of the signal obtained using FFT analyzer in the computer. The 1st natural frequency is 30Hz and second is 225Hz